Improving Professional Development in Mathematics by Understanding the Mechanisms that Translate Teacher Learning into Student Learning

关于数学教师专业发展对教师数学教学知识的影响，已有很多研究。虽然一些专业发展项目显示出教师知识有意义的变化，但这些变化并不总是转化为教师实践的变化。本项目探讨了教师如何将他们从专业发展中学到的知识转化为教学实践的机制。本项目的目标是研究教师在专业发展（PD）过程中获得的知识和技能如何转化为更注重概念的数学教学，进而促进学生的学习。该项目建立在一个很有前途的基于视频的PD基础上，让教师参与分析课堂数学教学的视频。先前的研究表明，那些能够通过关注学生所经历的数学学习机会的本质来分析教学的教师往往教得更有效。研究人员的目的是更好地了解教师在培养这种专业能力时所遵循的道路，并将其转化为更有抱负的教学，以支持更丰富的学生学习。缺乏对PD计划如何影响学生的理解是提高PD有效性的一个重要障碍。为了建立这种理解，研究人员旨在测试和完善一种实施理论，该理论规定了教师在将所学知识应用于课堂教学时面临的障碍，以及帮助教师克服这些障碍的情境支持。从了解影响PD效果的因素中获得的经验教训将有助于教育工作者设计PD计划，最大限度地将教师的学习转化为学生的学习。该项目将招募并支持一批4-5年级（40名）和6-7年级（40名）的教师，为期三年，以追踪教师学习的增长、教学实践的变化和学生学习的增长。该计划将连续三年全年提供。研究人员将专注于两个数学主题，第三个主题评估衡量转移效应。每年将进行几轮课程分析，由训练有素的教练协助，以类似年级的小型课程小组帮助教师将他们日益增长的分析技能转化为计划、实施和反思他们自己的课程。每年将分配额外的时间，以协助更大的教师小组发展教学内容知识，以分析教学。本研究主要关注以下问题：1)教师从PD学习、课堂教学和学生学习之间的关系是什么，假设的中介变量如何影响这些关系，以及随着教师分析教学能力的提高，这些关系如何变化？2)教师如何描述他们认为影响他们学习和教学的障碍和支持，这些障碍和支持如何深化和拓宽实施理论？考虑到数据的嵌套性质，多层次建模将用于解决第一个问题，以便测试一个假设教师学习与教学实践以及教学实践与学生学习之间直接和间接关系的模型。教师每年都会对每个数学主题进行评估，评估内容包括教学技巧分析、教学实践的运用以及学生的学习情况。聚类分析将用于探索基于测量特征的不同教师在学习分析一节课的数学、教学质量和学生成绩之间的关系可能有多大程度的不同。纵向分析将用于检验假设路径模型中变量之间的理论关系。教师的数学教学知识、课程计划和教科书课程材料的使用将作为教师学习和教学实践之间可能的中介变量进行检查。为了解决第二个研究问题，参与者将参与年度访谈，了解阻碍他们完成这项工作的因素，以及PD内部和外部的支持，以改善这些障碍。定量分析将测试障碍和支持与教师学习和课堂教学之间的关系。通过定性分析，进一步阐明将专业学习转化为实践的障碍和支持。这些障碍和支持，连同专业发展模式，将传播到外地。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A great deal is known about the effects of mathematics teacher professional development on teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching. While some professional development programs show meaningful changes in teacher knowledge, these changes do not always translate into changes in teacher practice. This project explores the mechanisms by which teachers translate what they learn from professional development into their teaching practice. The goal of this project is to study how the knowledge and skills teachers acquire during professional development (PD) translate into more conceptually oriented mathematics teaching and, in turn, into increased student learning. The project builds on a promising video-based PD that engages teachers in analyzing videos of classroom mathematics teaching. Previous research indicates that teachers who can analyze teaching by focusing on the nature of the mathematical learning opportunities experienced by students often teach more effectively. The researchers aim to better understand the path teachers follow as they develop this professional competency and translate it into more ambitious teaching that supports richer student learning. The lack of understanding of how a PD program can reach students is a significant barrier to improving the effectiveness of PD. To build this understanding, the researchers aim to test and refine an implementation theory that specifies the obstacles teachers face as they apply their learning to their classroom teaching and the contextual supports that help teachers surmount these obstacles. Lessons learned from understanding the factors that impact the effects of PD will help educators design PD programs that maximize the translation of teacher learning into student learning. The project will recruit and support a cohort of teachers, grades 4–5 (n=40) and grades 6–7 (n=40) for three years to trace growth in teacher learning, changes in teaching practices, and increases in student learning. The PD will be provided throughout the year for three consecutive years. The researchers will focus on two mathematics topics with a third topic assessed to measure transfer effects. Several cycles of lesson analysis will occur each year, with small grade-alike curriculum-alike groups assisted by trained coaches to help teachers translate their growing analysis skills into planning, implementing, and reflecting on their own lessons. Additional days will be allocated each year to assist the larger groups of teachers in developing pedagogical content knowledge for analyzing teaching. The research focuses on the following questions: 1) What are the relationships between teacher learning from PD, classroom teaching, and student learning, how do hypothesized mediating variables affect these relationships, and how do these relationships change as teachers become more competent at analyzing teaching?; and 2) How do teachers describe the obstacles and supports they believe affect their learning and teaching, and how do these obstacles and supports deepen and broaden the implementation theory? Multi-level modeling will be used to address the first question, taking into account for the nested nature of the data, in order to test a model that hypothesizes direct and indirect relationships between teacher learning and teaching practice and, in turn, teaching practice and student learning. Teachers will take assessments each year, for each mathematics topic, on the analysis of teaching skills, on the use of teaching practices, and on students’ learning. Cluster analysis will be used to explore the extent to which the relationship between learning to analyze the mathematics of a lesson, teaching quality, and student achievement may be different for different teachers based on measured characteristics. Longitudinal analysis will be used to examine the theoretical relationships among variables in the hypothesized path model. Teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching, lesson planning, and textbook curricular material use will be examined as possible mediating variables between teacher learning and teaching practice. To address the second research question, participants will engage in annual interviews about the factors they are obstacles to doing this work and about the supports within and outside of the PD that ameliorate these obstacles. Quantitative analyses will test the relationships between the obstacles and supports with teacher learning and classroom teaching. Through qualitative analyses, the obstacles and supports to translating professional learning into practice will be further articulated. These obstacles and supports, along with the professional development model, will be disseminated to the field. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.